Murdered West Virginia Sheriff was a strong, anti-drug crusader

Just months before being gunned down, Sheriff Eugene Crum made good on a campaign promise to do what many in law enforcement have attempted for years in southern West Virginia — crack down on drugs, especially the illegal sale of prescription pills.

In three months and two days on the job, he’d already helped indict dozens of suspected drug dealers through Mingo County‘s new Operation Zero Tolerance. Authorities haven’t said whether that crusade was related to his shooting death at mid-day on a Williamson street Wednesday, but residents and county officials suspect it.

Crum’s team has targeted people “who spread the disease of addiction among our residents,” said County Commission President John Mark Hubbard.

Resident Jerry Cline stood near the site of the slaying hours later, the drug crackdown clearly at the forefront of his thoughts.

“He told them right before he got in as sheriff, ‘If you’re dealing drugs, I’m coming after you. I’m cleaning this town up,'” Cline said. “… He got out just to do one thing, and that’s to clean this town up. That’s all that man tried to do.”

Authorities were mum on any motive and the connection between Crum and their suspect, 37-year-old Tennis Melvin Maynard, and did not announce what charges he would face. A Mingo deputy shot and wounded Maynard after a chase and after the suspect pulled a weapon, state police said.

At a news conference hours after the killing, officials mourned the fallen sheriff, but State Police Capt. David Nelson and others released few details on what happened blocks away from the county courthouse in the small town or later with the suspect.

“We were and we are proud of him and his service,” Hubbard said. “To say Eugene will be missed is a vast understatement.”

A bouquet of red roses with a red ribbon was fastened to a guardrail above the parking lot where the shooting happened.

Though there is no indication of any connection, Crum’s killing comes on the heels of a Texas district attorney and his wife being shot to death in their home over the weekend, and just weeks after Colorado’s corrections director also was gunned down at his home. Those bold killings and others have led authorities to propose more protection for law enforcers.

Crum was killed in the same place where he parked his car most days to eat lunch, near the site of a former pharmacy known for illegally distributing pills, a “pill mill” the sheriff wanted to be sure remained shut, said Delegate Harry Keith White, who campaigned with Crum last year.

“I think anybody you ask would tell you he was a great guy, always with a positive attitude, always trying to help people,” White said. “It’s just a sad, sad day for Mingo County and the state of West Virginia.”

Operation Zero Tolerance was Crum’s way to make good on a campaign pledge, White said.

State, federal and local authorities have all tried to clamp down on West Virginia’s drug problem, which centers on the illegal sale of prescription drugs in the southern counties. Mingo County is in the southwest corner of West Virginia, on the border with Kentucky.

In February, federal officials said they had prosecuted more than 200 pill dealers in the past two years in West Virginia.

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, the Democrat whose district includes Mingo County, said the sheriff, who was married with two children, was new to his job but not to the cause of justice.

“Every law-abiding citizen demands justice for this tragedy that has shaken our sense of decency, but not our resolve, to maintain law and order,” he said.

Crum had been a magistrate for 12 years and had previously served as police chief in Delbarton. He won the primary handily and ran unopposed in the general election in the fall.

Williamson, a town of 3,200, sits along the Tug Fork River in a part of the state long associated with violence.

Mingo and neighboring McDowell County are home to the legendary blood feud between the Hatfield family of West Virginia and the McCoy family of Kentucky, a conflict dating to the Civil War.

Crum’s county was dubbed “Bloody Mingo” during the early 20th century mine wars, when unionizing miners battled Baldwin-Felts security agents hired by the coal operators.

Crum’s killing saddened and disturbed Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has described himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” and is a national hero to conservatives on immigration issues. Arpaio himself has been the target of numerous threats, prompting the need for a security detail as some have said should be afforded to others who battle criminals.

“Inside one year, two of my deputies were shot, one killed and one nearly killed and now elected law enforcement officials across the nation seem to be being targeted,” he said. “The brazenness of these acts is confounding.”

3 COMMENTS

Or you could observe that if you start a war on something, e.g. a War on Drugs, the “bad guys” just might shoot back.

Alternately, one could “pull out”, have “peace with honour”, and observe that what a reasonably well-informed adult puts into themselves is their problem. End the war.

There could be long-term damage. This is noted on cigarette packs, and pretty much anyone over the age of about six is aware that cigarettes and alcohol can cause health problems. Thus the ‘well-informed’ part.

But a lot worse health problems could be caused by someone putting a bullet into themselves, and their freedom to do that will be rabidly defended despite the ancillary problem of that freedom being misused to put bullets into other people.

Jon

PS – Saw somewhere a statistic (I should dig it up and properly cite it) that said that, of all firearm deaths of young white men, four of every five were suicides. Of all firearm deaths of young black men, four of every five were homicides. But I digress. J.

Used to visit Blackberry, KY just west of Williamson with my wife’s family. I wouldn’t go hiking around the area unless you know someone there. We were stopped more than once and asked “who was our kin” by armed mountain folk. I loved it there.

Alternately, one could point out that ‘Operation Zero Tolerance’ equates to ‘Operation Zero Intelligence’, and that the War On Drugs has casualties on the side of the good and on the side of the bad.

Those who started the war might have wanted to consider that.

J.

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